


Dust and Nothing

by ReformedTsundere



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Give this man a break, Poor Tony, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), What could have happened, it's sad, my friend gave me this idea, not tony, post snap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 02:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16076528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReformedTsundere/pseuds/ReformedTsundere
Summary: Tony Stark returns to Earth and sees with his own eyes the aftermath of the snap. The only thing on his mind is Pepper.





	Dust and Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> From my MCU tumblr account. Decided to post it even though it's been a while since I wrote it.

Tony hardly fathoms how he gets back to Earth, to a home that no longer feels like it’s home. He walks, numb, down half-empty streets surrounded by wreckage, half of which he can’t recognize. He acknowledges that Wong came to find him, no, not _him_ , Stephan… Dr. Strange… Now a pile of nothing but air and the final, cryptic warning of a dying asshole on a dead planet surrounded by other dying assholes. And _Peter_ …

Tony staggers as he walks and pushes down the hot, sharp, bile crawling up his parched throat, threatening to spill out the longer he thinks about it. He continues on. A fog of nothing but _“I don’t wanna go,”_ and _“it was the only way,”_ swirling in his throbbing head.

Wong was looking for his Wizard, his Sorcerer Supreme, and takes back with him through the swirling teleportation ring, a silent, _broken_ man, clutching the torn sleeve of a ruined gift, a blue and red suit in his fist. The magician thinks better than to ask. He looks around at the fire and destruction on Titan and says nothing. Wong pulls Tony back to a half-empty New York City, whose streets are covered in smashed cars and lone dogs barking at the shadows of owners, dust now scattered by the wind.

In the distance Tony can hear crying, _screaming_ , children calling out for parents, friends, _anyone_. No one answers back and Tony feels the sour taste rising again. His right ear is ringing, a phantom pain that comes back from time to time and is now all-encompassing as a shrill droning. He’s disorientated further. It helps him ignore the beseeching looks from tear-stained faces that follow his trek through the city.

It takes him until the sun dips past the horizon to reach the tower. Tony’s face is burning pink from the exertion, lips splitting more and more as dehydration sets in. 

He vaguely remembers Wong saying he could drop Tony off, take him to the sanctuary even. Tony remembers in his haze, not responding, just shuffling along toward his tower… to _her_. He has no means of communication, just a barely there sense of direction and a hollow need in his chest, right above the hole filled with nanites.

It’s with a single pointed focus that Tony walks the ten miles, mouth dry, bones aching and nerves shaking out of his skin, to get to where Pepper should be. He develops a limp halfway through, the cut in his leg reopening again and deeper the longer he goes without rest and treatment.

It doesn’t matter. He hardly feels it. It’s a conditioned reaction his body has spent time developing.

As much destruction is on the streets outside his tower the inside is too sterile. It makes Tony’s soot-covered skin _itch_. A sensation of hard, curling fingers, circling around his lungs and squeezing develops the closer he gets to his and Pepper’s penthouse. His ear is still ringing, underneath that the rampant rush of his pulse as well, and yet… the tower is silent. Tony’s numbness drips away into cold, sharp dread the further he goes.

It takes him three horribly shaking times to get his thumb on the print scanner, and even twice as many to wipe away the grime from his skin to make it read properly. The door slides open with a soft, _too soft_ , woosh and the cool air of the apartment washes over him. It feels like the numbness sinking back into his bones. With heavy steps, Tony walks forward and the door closes behind him. It makes him wince as it’s automatic lock engages.

There is nothing but the barely there hum of electricity in the walls to greet him.

Tony clears his throat and it feels like shards of glass are cutting as he tries to drag a sound into the open space.

“Friday?” It’s weak, but the A.I. picks up on it anyway.

“Sir. It’s good to see you back.” Her Irish lit is soft and it coils the twisting in Tony’s torso even more and he doesn’t know why. There’s something to the stillness of it all, after the battle, the blood, the loss, that doesn’t sit right with him. Tony’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He staggers forward on exhausted, bleeding legs to the nearest control tablet.

“Where’s Pepper?” It’s still as choked off as his first attempt to speak but there’s more conviction behind it as he opens the screen to hundreds of flashing lights. It’s almost as though every person who Tony has ever spoken to has been trying to contact him. It isn’t the least bit surprising. He shuffles through it all, letting the weight of dread fall away to the background of zipping words and deleting emails. He’s looking for a sign, an answer to it all that he knows won’t come from any screen.

“I don’t know Sir.” Tony’s shoulders tense as he tries sending out a message to Wakanda. When nothing comes back in a minute, his knuckles turning white as he grips the pad, he turns to face the empty room again.

“What do you… _mean_?”

Friday takes a moment to respond but Tony’s gaze is snapping down to the pad in his hands. There’s a starred video message with Pepper’s official signature next to it. He shushes his A.I. with a half-raised hand, his shoulder is aching from the joint and he can’t raise it further than he does.

Tony dry swallows around the cuts in his throat and presses a trembling finger to the subject header.

The flashing link opens automatically in a .mov file. At first, it’s nothing back a black screen. Seconds pass and then it’s an almost eerily familiar sight.

The shot is from above, a security camera in Tony’s old lab. He sees himself on the stainless steel examination table, his back arching as he tries to reach into his own chest. He sees himself call for Pepper and watches as her heels click silently across the frame to his side. It fills the present Tony with nostalgia and anxiety.

_“Tony.”_

Pepper’s voice filters from the speakers in the walls but it’s sudden enough to make him start and whip around, looking for her as though she’s appeared in the room. His heart stutters radically in his chest and his hold on the pad only tightens as his eyes sink back down to the picture. It changes into snapshots of Pepper bringing him coffee, putting a jacket over his hunched over, sleeping form, Pepper holding him when the world starts to crumble around him.

 _“You’ve always needed me.”_ Her tone is light and joking, but the honesty is there and he can’t refute the statement even if he could speak. He has. He always… _always_ has.

“I didn’t like who I was then…” it whispers past his lips without him realizing it.

For a moment as the pictures and voice flutter by in soothing sentences he’s taken back to the year he’d lost her to ego and a seemingly selfless need to put everyone in the world before _them_. It had been hard and lonely. Days never ending as he struggled to get by with nothing but guilt in his stomach and the fabric of all he’d worked toward with the Avengers unraveling at the corners.

When he came out on the other side, a hardness in his heart and a tarnished shield in his grip Pepper had come back. Like she always did. Tony had been determined to not drive her away another time.

Her voice floats back into his focus and his eyes adjust to the tablet in his hands. It’s footage of the proposal, Tony slipping an elegant band over Pepper’s ring finger.

 _“Over the last few years I didn’t think anything could get more perfect, and really, having a life with you, with Iron Man, that’s saying something isn’t it?”_ Tony feels the side of his bloodied mouth quirk up in mirth.

_“Being with you has made me more fearless than I ever thought I could be, yes I’ve got patience and persistence, but some things I never thought I’d have to face and especially not with the life I lead with you.”_

Pepper’s tone has changed to something more serious and it makes Tony breathing constrict.

_“I hoped you’d find this late at night, clearing your junk mail and answering government requests. I guess that wasn’t very brave of me. But it’s not my time to be brave for you… It’s your time to be brave for **us.** ”_

The final image of their cake tasting dissolves and Tony’s blood freezes in his veins, where there was once ringing in his ears and the sound of pumping blood is replaced with dead silence. Even the constant hum of machines is no more. The final photo in the tasteful side show fades into existence and Tony’s knees finally give out.

He remembers her call to him moments before the ring ship left the atmosphere.

_“Tony, get back here right now, Tony! Tony, I’m -”_

His pulse quickens as the blood from his injured leg pools beneath him.

_“Tony! Tony, I’m -”_

Bile rises again.

_“Tony, **I’m -”**_

A black and white mess of x-ray noise stares up at him. A splotch in the middle, only the size of a tightly closed fist. An ultrasound of what can only be Pepper’s abdomen. What can only be the start of the cycle of life…

“Sir?” Friday sounds concerned and the ambiance of the world slams back into his head. He can’t tear his eyes away from the picture.

“Where’s Pepper Friday.” His words are shaking. Perhaps all of him is shaking.

“I don’t know sir.” She parrots from the first time he’d asked.

“Explain,” the panic is rising again, cresting behind his ribs, threatening to swallow up his heart as a thudding builds behind his eyes and the edges of his vision tinge black.

“She was here Sir and then she wasn’t. I haven’t been able to find any readings of her since her signal disappeared.”

Tony drops the tablet on the smooth tile floor and curses the fact it only bounces and doesn’t break. There’s no irony to match the dam the shatters inside himself. He’s done so well, compartmentalizing the tragic pain of the last half day, Peter clutching to his shoulders, Strange holding his gaze as he floated away, it was all put to the back of his mind as survival and determination to get back, to get to Pepper, took over everything.

Now the rug has been pulled from under his feet and the world won’t stop spinning. There’s a rushing in his ears and ice in his chest as he shakes. Tony’s hands go to his head and his fingers clench as he tries to hold it all in.

A moment of laboring breath passes and finally… _finally_ … Tony screams.

The man of iron broke on Titan, surrounded by dust.

Tony Stark breaks in New York City. The start of it all. Surrounded by nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos always welcome!


End file.
